


Unfortunately, Hell Had No Vacancies

by notyourparadigm



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Necromancer!Roose, Necromancy, Theon and Ramsay are just their old fashioned selves, Torture, Undead/Ghoul!Domeric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-22 14:45:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2511464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notyourparadigm/pseuds/notyourparadigm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theon once believed he was kept alive as a punishment for his crimes-- now he believed he was only alive as Ramsay's personal play-thing, doomed for a lifetime of satisfying the bastard's sick desires. However, Theon soon learns that Roose has much larger things planned for him, and a scheme larger than anyone in Westeros could possibly imagine...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unfortunately, Hell Had No Vacancies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quilljoy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quilljoy/gifts).



> PROMPT: "Any/Every BoltonxTheon (faves: Roose/Theon and Domeric/Theon, but Ramsay/Theon is super ultra cool too!). Gross guro, AUs and "what if" situations that deviate from canon are super cool. Maybe something involving ghosts/"the ghost of winterfell"? Or a complete AU where the creepy house where Theon is dared to spend the night in belongs to the Bolton family. Or the Boltons are actually ghouls or so??? Lore is fun. Plot is fun. Porn is excellent but also not mandatory."

Theon kept his eyes fixed on the grey scythe hanging just above the trees, the light struggling to find the forest for the clouds that swarmed the skies. Already the lights of the stars had been blotted out one by one, like candles pinched to naught but a wisp of smoke.

They had a ring of light cast around their feet to guide the way, from a torch Roose Bolton himself held aloft. He had discarded the pale pink cloak from his shoulder before they had departed, instead bracing himself from the night’s shrieking wind with one of a black fur pelt, not unlike the one worn by the wolves and feral hounds as they prowled around the forest. Theon had not been given such comfort, the thin fabric of his tunic trying to tear away from his body with each volley of air. The wind was but a kiss, though, in comparison to the shocks of pain that shot up his leg with every step he took. He wasn’t sure if his ankle had been fractured, broken, or shattered like a porcelain doll. It made little difference, really. Ramsay had given it to him for— for… for something he had done to deserve it. Theon couldn’t remember what it was this time. He tried not to make the same mistakes twice, but Ramsay was vigilant,  always knowing when Theon was misbehaving. And at the Dreadfort, misbehaviours were not rewarded with Maesters, or milk of the poppy.

The sounds of his own winces and whisperings seemed as much a part of the forest as the rattling of branches and accusing bird calls. Roose had not yet told him told him to be quiet— Roose had yet to say anything at all to him. Theon felt as if he was following a ghost into the depths of the trees, limping through each turn with the clattering of his shackles, while Roose floated noiselessly above the leaves.

Theon might have lost many parts of himself since he had come into possession of the Boltons, but he hadn’t yet lost his wits. He was no fool; he knew exactly why Lord Bolton was bringing him to the darkest, most isolated area of the forest. He had heard of Ramsay’s favourite games from the bastard himself. It hadn’t yet been a fortnight since Kyra had been invited to join the hunting party, and Theon did not expect to see her again— at least, not whole. Now, his turn to play had arrived.

The realization that he was walking towards his doom was nearly paralyzing. Fear of disobedience was all that kept him from collapsing on the leaf-laden ground, curling into a sobbing ball of despair. No one had ever escaped Ramsay’s hunt, and he could barely walk, let alone run. Ramsay would be furious if he didn’t play properly, so he’d probably have his own fun with Theon in other ways—

“Do you expect to leave this forest alive, Theon Greyjoy?”

It took half a moment for Theon to realize that it as Lord Bolton who spoke, and not another voice of despair echoing in his head. The Lord of the Dreadfort did not to to face him as he spoke, marching ever onwards with his pale orange flame.

“No, my lord.” He was surprised he could find his own voice, weak as it was, nearly stolen away by the violent breeze.

“That is wise of you,” Roose Bolton replied placidly, as if they were merely discussing a lesson on manners. “Before dawn is broken, half the realm will have already heard the rumours of how my bastard hunted you through the woods… crippling you, having his way with you, finally slaughtering you like an animal…”

Theon knew better than to beg, but a man listening to the details of his own death rarely had the time for reason. “P-Please my lord, please don’t— don’t let him! I… I’ll do anything, I’ll tell you everything, I’ll — I don’t want to die, not… not like this-!”

Amidst his pleas and sobs, Theon heard a low, dark noise of amusement. He could not tell if it was Roose Bolton’s chucking, or his own ears twisting the wind into sounds that were never made.

“So it is that you fear death, then?”

And as quickly as he had found it, Theon had lost his voice again. He dared not answer; as witless with fear as he was, marching towards his doom, he could not deny the swelling, empty pain that would gnaw at his chest and mind the chilling desperation for his own death that had consumed him now more times than he had wished to count. Theon Greyjoy did not want to die, but Theon Greyjoy had also endured many nights of writhing, maddening agony, begging to every god, person, or creature that would hear him for the death they all denied him. Even there, in the wake of his end, he tried to deny the horrifying glimmer of relief that the emptiness felt at the proximity of it.

“You will quite soon regret that fear. Death may very well seem the greatest of allies…”

Bolton’s voice dropped to silence, and Theon suddenly became aware of the pale cloak of fog that had crawled around their legs, swallowing their feet from view with every step. Had it settled while they were talking? It had appeared so quickly, it was as if the darkness itself had decided to change its form, entangling a new grasp around their ankles.

It was another hour if it was a minute before Theon heard another sound from Lord Bolton. He stood stiller than the trees, inhaling a breath as deep as the night itself.

“This is where we begin.”

For the first time since they had departed from the Dreadfort, Roose fixed his unflinching gaze upon Theon.

“Beside me now, Turncloak.”

There was no choice but obedience; Theon fell in behind Lord Bolton’s left side, stooping behind the shadow his torch cast across the newly revealed clearing. The light crawled up the trunks of mighty oaks, elms, and cedars that lined the perimeter of the area. Fifteen feet across at its widest, the centre of the oval contained but a pale white stump of what must have once been the broadest tree for leagues. 

Six iron pillars of unlit kindling surrounded it, and Roose Bolton’s first task was to light them one by one as they looped around the clearing. It wasn’t until the second had been lit that Theon espied the swaying shadow amongst the eastern trees. His legs nearly locked in place, his lungs momentarily forgetting how to breathe.

“Kyra.” 

The name was naught but a yelp, but Theon knew it belonged to what remained of the poor girl’s corpse. Her head contained nothing but bloody, empty eye sockets, both frayed about the edges where the cores had plucked and pecked the soft, clever brown eyes away. The blood ran in two red streams down her face, trickling across the ghastly white of her exposed jawbone; the skin from the lower left half of her face was nowhere to be found. Her arms stretched well above their normal reach above her head, no doubt dislocated by the rope that kept her feet dangling half a foot above the ground. That was, to say, her remaining foot— one leg was gnawed off at the shin, leaving jagged skin, muscle, and bone behind to suggest an animal had helped itself to an easy meal.

A cold, wet sting struck Theon’s cheek. He realized he was crying when Roose honoured him with a brief glance.

“Do not waste your tears on her. You will need them yourself soon enough.

By that point, Roose Bolton had finished lighting the torches, and stood between the two posts directly opposite Kyra’s swaying corpse. Theon was obliged to return to his side, feet walking unbidden to his required position. It was not until Lord Bolton revealed his hands from his cloak that Theon noticed he no longer held the torch— instead, two white flashes of silver met his pupils, one round, the other flat. A bowl, and a knife.

“On your knees, Turncloak.”

Fear, confusion, and a desire to remain alive would have been enough to keep him frozen in place, were it not for a more powerful force at work, an impossible, leaden weight that befell his legs, making it impossible for him to remain standing. His head recoiled violently as he collapsed upon his knees, eyes struck wide upon Lord Bolton’s next command.

“Arms open.”

This time, there was no denying or dismissing the dark magic manipulating and posing Theon as Roose Bolton had dictated. His wrists were wrenched taught to either side, above his head, as if he were strung upon that Seven-damned cross again. He could not see what binding held him in place, and not for the darkness that enshrouded them. It was as if the shadows themselves were his shackles, a grasp tighter than death, so that Theon could not even move what fingers he had left.

It was Theon’s left hand that interested Lord Bolton the most. He snatched it from the air without any effort, the forces that held Theon still obviously not binding his own actions. He pressed a thumb along the stump that once held a pinky, passing over the remaining bone and knuckle repeatedly, as if trying to find something that had been engraved there.

“Ah, I see that Ramsay has not forgotten the proper technique. Perhaps I underestimate the bastard.”

Theon would have shivered had his skin been capable of it. He would have winced, whimpered, and writhed too, but every limb and every organ was unresponsive, as if frozen in time. Theon didn’t even know if he could blink. Was he even breathing? Had his heart been held still by the shadow magic, too?

If Bolton could see any of the bemused terror, he gave no sign. “It was not even me who taught him. Not directly, at least. I taught everything to one of my sons, and in turn he taught the other…”

The silver flashed again. At Theon’s side, Bolton laid the bowl on the ground, pausing for a moment as he did so, as if waiting for it to respond to the motion. He then lowered Theon’s outstretched arm so that his hand hovered above it; Theon didn’t have to see the brandished knife to know what it meant.

“I don’t think Ramsay knows just how much trouble he has saved me by capturing you. His time in Winterfell had never been part of the plan, and yet nothing could have possibly gone better… though I suppose you deserve some credit. You certainly surprised us all with your own little scheme, misguided though it was. Thanks to you, all of our own preparations will be finished far sooner than I could ever have hoped. You see, the true blood of kings is not an easy thing to acquire, especially from the living…”

Of course it was the blood. Ramsay had always enjoyed the blood, although it was obvious he liked the screams and begging more. Lord Bolton’s reasons only confused and frighted Theon more. What did he mean by “blood of kings”? Did he mean Balon? Balon was no more a king than any other ironborn— the only difference was that he had a throne and crown that fit the role. When he had captured Winterfell, he had done so as Prince Theon. No wonder he had lost it so quickly; a lie cannot hold a city any more than some imagined hero from the song’s and children’s stories. There was nothing royal about Theon Greyjoy or his father. There was nothing special about Theon Greyjoy at all. There was no reason for him to still be alive, no reason for all the suffering, all of the attention that Ramsay gave him. And now the attention that Roose gave him. Hadn’t he done enough for one lifetime? Hadn’t he suffered enough for his failures, for his sins? Did he not yet deserve the death he had been promised by a hundred cursing voices the night he had taken Winterfell?

Roose Bolton’s flat blade gave Theon all the answer he needed. His index finger was outstretched, nearly begging for the knife to slide underneath the filthy skin, to begin separating the flesh from the tendons and bones below. Every muscle in his body strained and twisted within himself, trying to close his fingers, to pull his hand away, and unable even to rattle in desperation as the blood poured from the new opening, a ribbon of red unnatural in volume and movement. There shouldn’t have been that much blood, nor should it have been flowing so easily, so eagerly. 

Lord Bolton worked diligently despite the mess, slicing and peeling with unshaken focus, lips moving soft with his motions, as if he was whispering to himself. Theon couldn’t hear him though. He could not even see him. His vision was stained with a perpetual flare of white, a white more vast and binding than even the blackest, dreamless nights than never seemed to end. His brain could no longer process any sense but pain— every sound, taste, and smell was lost to the pain, all felt as pain by default.

Theon wasn’t able to see the pausing look of disbelief that Roose Bolton gave him as a half-muted, screeching cry of agony managed to escape the all-binding shadows, tearing from his throat like the howl of an animal blinded with madness. Theon wasn't able to see him smirk to himself in amusement, either, nor see the silver bowl finally fill with the flayed blood, rippling a sickly red from the torchlight. Theon saw nothing of what the Lord of the Dreadfort did afterwards, for at some point after his senses saturated completely with pain, his conscious mind could take no more, shattering under the white to the absolute, oblivious blackness. 

 

* * *

 

It was approaching dawn when Theon regained consciousness, but it was not the chatter of birds in conversation that thumped and rung in his drums like the bells of a Sept— in fact, the forest was just as silent and motionless as it had been during the night. It was the muttering of voices that itched at his ears, calm and unintelligible. It wasn’t until after a few moments of straining to listen to the words that Theon realized he was toppled over, nose first, into the layer of foliage and dirt that covered the ground. His legs remained shackled together, the underside of his legs pressing down on the chain links in a buzzing, tormenting numbness. His joints were rusted iron; the few movements he could manage were slow and broad.  He grunted and gasped and he managed to push himself onto his side, chest heaving with effort as his cheek crushed down upon the yellow and orange leaves.

“Awake so soon? My my, he is a resilient one.”

Theon’s eyes tore open at the sound of the voice— a stranger’s voice, breathy and horrifyingly foreign. Unfortunately, he had turned to face the wrong direction, and only saw the edge of the forest still waiting for him outside of the clearing. Had they been followed and he hadn’t realized? Had Roose sent for one of his servants, one that Theon didn’t know?

“Better for us. I was beginning to think we were going to have to drag him back.” It was Roose Bolton who responded, also nearby. “Come now, we should be back before dawn. We don’t want to have any early risers seeing things they shouldn’t…”

A hand, cold as winter, pressed upon Theon’s back, sending his skin crawling. Wildly, he attempted to stand and escape from the unknown touch, but only managed half a moment upon his feet before his vision swam in front of him. He began to collapse forward onto his hands and knees when the cold hands grabbed an arm and shoulder, catching him before he met with the ground again.

“Careful now, don’t be too hasty-!” The voice belonged to the cold hands. Twisting his neck around, he found the two dark, narrowed eyes that matched the voice and hands, giving him a small smile as their gazes met. Immediately Theon’s throat ran dry, and with a sudden surge of energy, he freed himself from the stranger’s grasp to fall as he should have. Theon could see the resemblance all too easily — the hard-set jaw, gaunt cheeks, thin lips, and clean-shaven face. Only the expression was deceptively unfamiliar: gentle, and almost graced with a juvenile innocence, even as he gave a low, knowing chuckle. “Do I frighten you so? You’ve grown pale.”

Theon’s heart felt as if it might leave his chest like a runaway courser. His eyes flicked from the stranger, to Roose, standing with his arms crossed a few feet away, back to the stranger. The young man was not a stranger, in truth.

“Theon Greyjoy, you have the pleasure of meeting my true born son and heir, Domeric Bolton.”

Theon's mouth hung agape, head swaying slightly from left to right at the impossibility that knelt before him. “No… no, you’re… you’re _dead_ …”

Domeric grinned. “More or less. Not quite like the other corpses you’ve met though, hmm?”

It was true, although it was not hard to spot a few aspects of his appearance that suggested the unnatural circumstances of his existence. For one, his skin had an undeniable discolouration; a lack of pigment that left him appearing a soft grey. When his lips parted in a smile, they revealed pale, yellow, brittle teeth, which appeared closer to porcelain than tooth. Around his deep brown irises, his eyes were lined with blue and black veins, bold and thick as if straining with effort. Theon agreed silently that he resembled no dead man he had ever met— nor any living man, either. But still he shook his head in disbelief.

“You… R-Ramsay, he… poisoned…”

“Oh, yes he did!” Domeric nodded assuringly, almost proudly. “Just as my lord father commanded.”

Now it was Roose Bolton’s turn to receive a horror-filled stare. He took little notice of it though, instead focusing his scrutinizing gaze upon Domeric. “It appears as if he did his job properly, too. This time there is none of that forsaken stench.”

“The wonders of an empty bowel,” Domeric agreed. He made a pointing gesture towards Theon. “Did he ever meet our Reek?”

“No. He only knows what’s he’s been told... the same lie everyone else believed.”

“Then I should have no problem fooling them a second time! We have no need to keep to the shadows and stash our secrets out of sight. I can—”

“No,” said Roose quickly, frowning firm as ever. “We shall keep our secrets out of sight, lest our enemies see them and discover a weakness we overlooked.”

Domeric chuckled. Theon was quickly finding himself uncomfortable at the sound. “Weakness? I don’t think I know what that is.”

“Now is not the time for arrogance. Let us leave now and return before our absence is noted.”

Theon noted the long look that Domeric gave his father with utter confusion. They spoke too much and too vaguely for him to understand what was happening. Had Domeric not died at all? Had they just faked his death? Why had they brought him chained out to the forest at all? 

Theon hadn’t much of an opportunity to ponder the questions, though, as the agony in his hands flared as he remembered the flaying knife, the blood that wouldn’t stop, the unnatural stream of red, thick and staining anything it touched, everything in sight. Swallowing his own sounds of distress, he finally looked again upon the finger that Roose had worked and tormented so meticulously, so purposefully. 

He all but screamed at the sight of the twisted grey posterior of what had once been his finger. It was as if the skin had died and already begun to fester— but that wasn’t right, he shouldn’t have had any skin left, he should have been overwhelmed by pain, begging for his finger to be cut off, trying to bite it off himself— 

“Alright, alright, that’s enough of that.” Domeric grabbed Theon’s outstretched wrist from where it remained frozen mid-air. He turn it a few times, swivelling the hand to face palm up, palm down, palm up again. “Now, there doesn’t seem to be anything of concern here, does there?”

Theon stared at Domeric’s hand, unable to ignore the similarity in the colour of his skin to the mangled, unresponsive finger— the finger that shouldn’t have been there at all.

“No, my lord.”

“Good. Now stand.”

He tried to do so, but again his head grew light as the world disappeared from sight, his balance failing, and again Domeric reacted quickly enough to catch him. The icy hands still made him gasp sharply, the feeling reminding him far too much of the flat of one of Ramsay’s blades lying flat upon his exposed skin.

“He has lost a lot of blood,” Roose Bolton explained. “He will not be able to walk on his own.”

Domeric’s jaw tightened. “Isn’t that… dangerous?”

“Necessary,” said Roose. “Tread lightly now, we have no time to waste.”

It was when Domeric pulled one of Theon’s arms over his shoulder that he began to realize what was happening. “I… I’m going back?”

“Your part has only just begun, Turncloak.”

“B…but you said… I … I was going to…”

“I thought you feared death. Do you beg for it now?”

He remembered Lord Bolton’s words for him as they had walked into the forest, when he had wept for Kyra. Perhaps she was the lucky one.

“Don’t answer that, Theon.” Domeric whispered into his ear. Both his breath and words were soft enough that Theon wasn’t sure if he had just imagined them.


End file.
